Heart rate variability in patients with low back pain: systematic review.

Abstract

Introduction: Low back pain has multifactorial etiology and may result in changes on autonomic nervous system, such as increasing cardiac sympathetic modulation and decreasing heart rate variability (HRV). Objective: To carry out a review about the use of HRV in patients with low back pain. Methods: The systematic search of this study was conducted through the LILACS, PubMED, CINAHL and SciELO databases. Results: Ten studies that showed the relationship between low back pain and HRV index responses were included in the review. The results show that seven studies report an improvement/relation of HRV index with low back pain and other two studies did not show altered responses. Conclusion: There are few evidence reporting the relationship between low back pain and HRV responses in the literature. Moreover, the results are inconclusive which makes it difficult to affirm that there is a relationship or improvement in the HRV index after intervention in patients with low back pain.